Schiit Saga vs Freya

[gmgraves]

Anyone like to offer reasons for buying one over the other? I have M-Audio M-38 studio monitors with 1/4", RCA, and XLR connections. Looking for a new pre-amp. The Saga seems to offer the potential of doing the job very well, but I wonder what I would gain by springing for the extra bucks needed for the Freya. Any thoughts would be welcome....

The Freya is more flexible with more features, but the Saga has a simpler signal path, and generally, the simpler the signal path, the better the sound.

[gmgraves]

I wonder what the differences in circuit really mean. The Saga has a single tube buffer - how that even work in 2 channel stereo circuit escapes me....

The tube is a 6SN7, a dual triode. That means tha there are actually two tubes in the glass envelope. Half of the tube is for one channel, and the other half of the tube is the other channel.

[gmgraves]

Many of us have DACs with volume control -- the "need" for a preamp to begin with is suspect. How much a sonic benefit would there be with a real line amp stage as compared to, say, a Sabre digital volume control scheme?

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You are right, of course. IF digital is your only source, and IF your DAC has a volume control, then a "preamp" is, as you point out, largely redundant. OTOH, if you have other sources (tuner, phono, tape), then a preamp is pretty much a must have and furthermore, if your DAC's volume control isn't on a remote control. then you will probably at least need a Saga (or something similar) to give you mute and volume control from your listening position. Can't speak to anyone else's needs, but I've never been able to judge "proper" volume from anywhere but my listening chair.

[gmgraves]

Well, the new Tung-sol tube certainly sounds different from the NOS Sovtek tube you get standard with the Saga. I think The Tung-sol sounds better..

 

I've always found that puzzling. You would think that all tubes with the same part number would sound alike. After all, the tube's static characteristics, transconductance and bias curves are very narrowly proscribed and all the characteristic curves look the same in the tube manuals, but I know from experience that they all do not sound the same. When I had my VTL Monoblocks, I found that every 807 output tube (each amp took six) sounded different and the Chinese ones that shipped with the amp sounded the worst. They also fell apart with the bases separating from the glass envelope if you tried to remove them from their sockets by handling the glass, and the anode caps on top of the tubes came off with the anode cap leaving a little nub of wire sticking out of the top of the tube and the anode cap stuck inside the cap connector, but that's another story for another day. Luckily, I found a ham radio operator who had a horde of NOS JAN (Joint Army-Navy) 807s in the plain boxes with the typed military info on a slip of paper glued to the side of the box, and I made a "lifetime buy" from the guy at $0.50 a tube (I bought 48 of them). They sounded best. I have no idea who made them, because they were all made to the same military spec, but I read somewhere that JAN tubes (with the brown bakelite bases instead of black) were supplied during WWII by one of three tube makers: RCA, Sylvania, or GE. Anyway they all sounded exactly the same!

[gmgraves]

I'm fairly certain that the tolerances on tubes is rather loosely "defined" if anything when you're pricing factory stuff. That's why tube retailers sell matched pairs (triodes, and gain from what I've experienced) for a marginal premium. The same can apply for preamp tubes such as the 6SN7. It's these minor (sometimes significant) differences that can scertainly change the sonic characteristics of a sensitive circuit IMO.

I'm reasonably sure that "matched pairs" of tubes are not matched sonically, but rather electrically and mostly in output tubes. The reason is so that in a push-pull output arrangement in amps that are "self-biasing" the tubes will both conduct evenly and share the load 50%-50%. Matched pairs aren't necessary, of course with amps having adjustable bias, where a meter across the tube can be used to set the biases equally via a potentiometer.

[gmgraves]

I certainly agree that matched pairs are indeed intended to be as close to each other electrically than anything else. However, I'm of the camp that believes that the electrical differences are the audible ones when it comes to anything other than speakers. While you can match potential plate currents in matched pairs as their resistance would be similar, you can also match their potential for gain (capacitance?). Thus, get them electrically close and you would be audibly matched. Again, just my opinion, as psychoacoustics are largely at play in this industry.

 

I don't doubt for a minute that differences in the same tube type from manufacturer to manufacturer and run to run will result in slightly different sound. And amps that have no provision for bias adjustment will sound better with matched pairs. My only point was that they are not matched for sound quality (which would be difficult to do anyway, because then you'd be relying on someone else's idea of what sounds best) only for electrical similarity.

To me, this explains why tubes from the same manufacturer (especially if you buy direct, and not from someone like TAD, Ruby, etc.) will vary slightly in sound, and thus, electrical values, even within the same batch of the same model. The rest, well, I don't hear anything beyond 12kHz at my age probably, so it doesn't matter.

 

I think you'd be surprised at how much it does matter.

[gmgraves]

Yes, you are right, it was a bit harsh. My bad, but it is largely true. It is also early days on those tubes. Reliability and longevity are two of the areas where old tubes excelled over the modern variations. To my knowledge, some of the old metallurgy and chemistry was lost, and the modern ones just don't have the same magic.

 

My experiences (and thus, my opinion) tell me that Chinese tubes are particularly junk. It's not that they sound bad, but their build quality ranges from mediocre to unbelievably bad. For instance, how about tubes with phenolic-bases (such as octal and 5-pin (2 fat pins, 3 skinny ones) that have the glass envelopes literally come out of their phenolic bases (and break wires) when one tries to remove the tube from it's socket! Or, with tubes have a plate cap, having the tube cap come off when one tries to remove the plate lead. The cap comes off stuck inside the plate lead connector so that it has to be dug out with a knife blade, leaving only a short stub of useless wire sticking through the glass on top of the tube! I've seen the bases separate on Chinese octal-based tubes such as 6SN7s, and both the bases and plate caps come off on 807s (an 30 MHz spec'd 6L6 used throughout the 2nd WW, and up into the 1950's for military transmitters and more recently used as an audio output tube).

 

 

[gmgraves]

I can't wait till they build my car

 

Seriously, why are not the Germans making tubes?

Don't know about now, but Telefunken made tubes up to fairly recently and Phillips made tubes in their factory in Stutggart and there was another German brand that people used to call "Bugle" because each tube had a picture of a miniature tube with a face on it and arms and the tube was blowing a bugle. I used to know the brand name of those tubes, but I don't remember it any more. But these days, who knows who builds what or even where!?

[gmgraves]

Amperex - Bugle Boy. Holland. Great logo!

 

YES! That's correct. I had forgotten. and again, you are correct that It's the Netherlands, not Germany. It wouldn't surprise me if the only tube manufacturer left in Europe proper (if you leave out Ukrane and Russia), is ElectroHarmonix from the Czeque Republic. I tried their 6DJ8s in my AR SP11 and found them to be microphonic, and replaced them with Svetlanas which were much better. I don't know what their reputation is, really.

[gmgraves]

Only thing the manual says is:

 

"Input sensitivity (for full output): 600 mV (8 ohm load)"

 

Saga's specs read:

 

"Output Impedance: 180 ohms"

 

I can't find the impedance (RCA out) listed for the Ifi iDSD...

 

So a mismatch you think?

 

Definately NOT! Most (if not all) unbalanced line-level inputs on home audio gear is at least 10k Ohms and better. So 180 Ohms into 10k is definitely OK.

[gmgraves]

On 7/1/2017 at 10:09 AM, Abtr said:

 

The potentiometer you see on the Saga board is used to control a microprocessor that in turn controls a relay switched resistor-based attenuator. The Schiit Sys passive preamp is a potentiometer-based volume control. I tried it with the Saga and the hum is the same as with the Saga's own volume control, so you may be right in that this hum seems to be related to resistive attenuators in general..

 

Btw, I ran the new Sophia for about 48 hours nonstop and the hum/noise level has dropped significantly, especially at the Saga's max volume setting. This is nice because that's how I bypass the Saga's volume control. The tube may or may not develop the same problem as my other Sophia: excessive hum at the Saga's lower volume settings. We'll see..   

 

Here's the important question: you say that you hear it when the volume is advanced to maximum and you put your ear close to the speaker. Do you hear the hum (at all!) when playing music at your normal listening level, and from your normal listening position. If the answer to that Q is yes, then it warrants further investigation. If, on the other hand, you don't hear it at normal listening levels from your normal listening position, then it is purely academic and  I say, forget it and go back to listening to music.

[gmgraves]

On 10/28/2017 at 5:32 PM, Abtr said:

 

I've seen no reports about SQ issues with the Shuguang CV181-Z, but some suggest that the tube may last only a year (or a few thousand hours?). Another option is the newer Psvane CV181-TII. I can say that it sounds very similar to the Shuguang CV181-Z in the Saga..

Have any of you Freya owners tried an RCA-, GE-, or Sylvania-built JAN NOS 6SN7? I have an acquaintance who owns a a Freya and has settled on a WWII NOS JAN 6SN7 as being far superior to any recently built tubes after trying the Shuguang, ElectroHarmonix, SovTech and several other new manufacture 6SN7s from around the world. He found a source (a ham radio operator) who had a stash of different JAN tubes he's had for years. My friend bought, what he hopes will be a "lifetime buy" of six 6SN7s from the guy. The seller ran each one on a full function tube tester to make sure that the ones my acquaintance was buying had not become gassy in the ensuing 70 years. Damned nice of him. Depending on how they were stored, some surplus JAN tubes have lost at least a part of their vacuum.